And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. And the angel said to them, ‘Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people. For unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.’ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

“Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace, to men of good will.”

Most of you know that my dad, Mr. Kippers, has a propensity for quoting Shakespeare. And yes, he has me studying “The Bard” too, as part of my Renaissance Bully education!
You also know that he worked very hard in his lab to make sure that I would have all of his best attributes.
If you’ll remember, there was that little explosion in the lab and it was purported that he added too much Eastern Box Turtle Olfaction. Personally, I don’t think one can ever have too much EBTO (Eastern Box Turtle Olfaction) not to be confused with EBT (English Bull Terrier). HARK! Could that be a coincidence or a harbinger of things to come?
Definitely the latter because…..
DRUM ROLL PLEASE!
This morning, while the dew was on the vinca, I, with extreme grace and finesse, captured (and released) my turtle #3! Dad is right,
A TURTLE BY ANY OTHER NAME WOULD STILL SMELL SWEET. (another apology to Shakespeare)

MASTER KIRBY HERE:
I have begun my studies to become a Renaissance Bully like my adopted dad, Mr Kippers. That means time must be spent in the Walker House library.

Cicero said it best, “”If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”

Well bless my Mama! That is as true as the fact that the moon glows at night! Maybe there IS something to all of this library reading. I’ll have to hand it to Cicero, he “gets it”- especially about the garden. And that is what brings me to the subject of this blog post.

Mom was working on the sofa with Miss Sophie Peach and Mr Kippers by her side when I got the urge to go potty. There is a three minute window from the time I bark to get me outside or the next thing they hear is “clean up on aisle 3”. Sometimes I bark just to see how fast I can get my people to move!

Today I sounded the alarm loudly and Dad came running! We immediately went outside where, after I took care of my personal business, I alerted and started to track. Dad called Mom to hurry and come out with camera ready because he said I had either found a turtle scent or feral cat poop. The first one is acceptable, the second is what a foxhunter would call riot*… of sorts.
*Riot – When hounds hunt anything besides intended quarry, it is called riot.
No riot today! When Mom got outside Dad let my lead out and I hit that line like a strike bully!

Yep, I nabbed my second turtle 🐢 🐢!
Mom not only got me on video in “capture mode”, but she took my turtle inside and indelibly marked him with the appropriate information.

She then brought him back out so that he and I could visit. Mr Kippers has caught over 50, Miss Sophie Peach about a dozen and though I have only two to my credit, Mom said this was the most beautiful turtle of all the turtles that have been captured at Walker House! And he’s my favorite color! I have “Baton Orange ” and now “Tortue Orange”!

T. S. Eliot said, “Home is where one starts from.” I’m not certain about Mr Eliot, well that being a big quote of his and all. Of course one starts from home. I mean my crate is in my home and I do have to start from there in order to get to the garden to hunt for turtles! SHEESH!

IN FOX HUNTING TERMS:
Drawing blank- A day is blank when hounds do not find a fox.

We English Bull terriers know these things AND we know that since this year’s turtle season opened, our “Pack of Reds” has been drawing blank. I actually thought that we’d have a remarkable season since our winter was so mild, but turtle scent has been non existent- until today!

I, Mr Kippers, have garnered 51 box turtles in my career- thus far- and
Miss Sophie Peach has turned in a very respectable 12 turtles in the last 24 months.

Of course, Master Kirby FitzKippers is only 11 months old. We certainly understand that it will take time. Or so we thought…

Today Dad turned Kirby out into Bully Park for a little exercise, but within five minutes, Kirby struck a scent line that put Dad into overdrive to get back to Bully Park to check on him. Low and behold, he had a humongous turtle pinned. He was so proud! Dad flipped it over to see if it had been caught before, (you know Mom marks them with indelible ink number & initials), but it hadn’t!

I don’t think that Miss Sophie Peach nor I were ever as proud! ( and we were extremely proud of our catches)

It is with a heavy heart that I announce another “boo-boo” in the cloning lab. Truthfully it should be labeled a “major oops”. I am beginning to think that the turtle olfactory is an unstable component. It was no doubt the catalyst for the first explosion and I believe that it was for this one as well. Fortunately, I have Rent-A-Lab insurance to cover damage to the lab, which was thankfully minimal.

Unfortunately, this time all of my petri dishes, containing the embryos, as well as my DNA samples, “MOI” and the laboratory window just blew out of the lab.

I’m afraid that I was left dazed amid the smoke and slime of the disaster. Of course, I’m certain that anyone would be dazed having landed on one’s bum after being jettisoned, unceremoniously, out of a window. I just stood there in disbelief! I was so close to my goal.

EMS said that I lost consciousness for a few moments, but I’m not certain that they were correct. I kid you not, I know I saw a Galapagos tortoise walking around me. Seriously! Or was it just a bizarre dream? I mean I DO know what a tortoise looks like!

I sat in the ground cover, next to the lab window, covered in cloning residue, while trying to decide what to do next. All of my little “mini-me” embryos scattered around me. What I need is a miracle!

I do want to thank baby sister Sophie Peach for racing over when she heard the news flash. She is an intuitive little scamp and knew that it was most likely the lab in which I was working. On the other hand, she really didn’t have to bring Mom’s camera to document the disaster. SHEESH!

The part that hurts the most is that the embryos were ready to be implanted into a surrogate. Now they are strewn all through the ground cover. Yep a miracle is what I need. A “bone fido” miracle.

It really is hard to get good help. Mind you, I love my baby sister Miss Sophie Peach, but as a lab assistant she’s lacking. First of all, she doesn’t show up on time and when she does she refuses to wear proper lab attire. She actually wore a white frock, her pearls and a humongous bow to work!

I had already cleaned up my mess from the lab explosion, so all that was required was for her to wash test tubes and a few other necessaries such as beakers etc.
Probably just an hours’ work, but she parlayed it into two days, two lunch hours and four “milk bone” breaks.

First she just sat there to see if the test tubes would wash themselves.

She even closed her eyes to see if they would disappear.

Some rolled off on the floor and Sophie Peach just stared at them as if they would levitate back onto the counter.

Now do y’all see why it took Sophie so long? Finally she got to work and I must admit, she did an outstanding job once she got started.

Though when she finished, she turned, looked at me, and gave me a most unusual smirk. Little sisters, SHEESH! You can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em!

Nevertheless, tomorrow is Monday and I will begin my cloning process anew.
This time I am determined!

I know that I have been dragging my paws getting back into the lab, but this hundred degree heat is sweltering! Of course, having humidity that topped 96% last night was, well, simply unacceptable to my delicate sensitivities.
However, Mom had a little chat with me over the weekend. She told me that my procrastinating was going to get me into trouble, as I only have two weeks left before Loyola will need their lab back for the beginning of the next school year. She also said that the best way to get something done is to begin. So I did. Monday morning found me in the lab where Phase One is now underway.
First I put on my lab coat & eye protection. Everyone knows that I am a stickler for safety equipment! One never knows when a mishap might happen!

X

I also wore a snappy little Classic Kippers’ bowtie. After all, it’s been proven that dressing for success leads to success and it’s imperative that I am successful with my cloning.

PLEASE NOTE:

My mother has been asked, by more than four people, why she would spend $180,000 to have me cloned. Let me assure each and everyone of you that my mother is NOT paying to have me cloned. She told me early on that it was my baby- figuratively end otherwise. Of course being good parents, they are cheering on my project and me.
At that point I was ready to begin. It was necessary that I began with coat color. First I mixed large portions of English Bull Terrier Red with lesser amounts of English Bull Terrier White which would add the “chrome to my clone”. “Chrome” being the white blaze, white collar, as well as white paws/legs. It was imperative that those proportions were precise! Next I added a healthy portion of the “Fox-Fox” gene. As one would be aware from having read my previous post, the “Fox-Fox” gene is what makes me ALWAYS camera perfect for my photo shoots.

I added a healthy measure of that to my cloning process. Attributes of gentleness, heart and philanthropy were added too, plus the usual quirky bully genes. I mean after all, without all of those genes a bully would just be, well, and ordinary dog.

And what would I be like without my incredible sense of style?

I’ve had THAT working on the Bunsen burner!

Dad has emphatically stated that my clone must be very small so that mom can handle him.

Although I am small for a standard English bullterrier, I need to make sure that genetically there is some “Lilliputian” DNA included. I pondered this point for quite some time as I had absolutely no idea what to do and then I remembered about my awesome friend HARRY! Yes, everyone’s wild about HARRY! In the bullterrier world he is somewhat of a small fry, but inside that diminutive statue resides one who, like “moi”, is an ambassador of goodwill for the breed! I immediately contacted HARRY who graciously overnighted his mitochondrial DNA. It has been added.
Because this is a new beginning, I added the beauty of the Sunrise.
Then things got tough.
The difficult part was deciding how much turtle olfaction should be added.
One should be aware that a dog’s sense of smell is about 1,000 to 10,000,000 times more sensitive than a human’s (depending on the breed). A human has about 5 million scent glands, compared to a dog, who has anywhere from 125 million to 300 million! No wonder my parents had no idea that they had so many turtles living in their yard- they are olfactory challenged!
Uh Oh, I must have added an incompatible material. Why else would I be sitting here in green slime? Yep, it’s turtle olfactory and it’s – as we say in the South – A MESS!
I will endeavor to find out what I did wrong while my invaluable lab assistant, Miss Sophie Peach, washes the test tubes etc.

I am terribly impressed with the course material. When I signed up, I had to choose between a pig or a sheep to be used as my example. Of course, because we are called “pig dogs”, I chose the pig example. My goodness! MRI even included information from the AKC English Bull Terrier color chart which will help immensely!

I had spoken to MRI earlier and explained my situation. I told them that I was not trying to get a degree in biochemistry/cloning per se, but that it’s imperative that I find a protégé in short order.
After all, my “mini me” will have to grow and develop.

Now for the super exciting news! I have finally secured a laboratory for my personal use!
I will now, very shortly, be able to put to work those things which I am learning.
Now, I’ll bet y’all are itching to know which lab.
You see, the LSU Med School laboratory is in use daily, so naturally I needed a place where I can work, undisturbed of course. LOYOLA COLLEGE PREP graciously responded to my request to use their facility. Since their students are out of school for the summer, it will be ideal!

I’m going to be finishing up with my book work by tomorrow evening and will then begin my lab work.
Two points of importance:
First, clones do not always look identical. Although clones share the same genetic material, the environment also plays a big role in how an organism turns out.
Secondly, in reproductive cloning, researchers remove a mature somatic cell, such as a skin cell, from an animal that they wish to copy. They then transfer the DNA of the donor animal’s somatic cell into an egg cell, or oocyte, that has had its own DNA-containing nucleus removed.

When Mr. Kippers caught turtle # 49 he simply stated:
” And are we not all in agreement that their should be some serious falderal to commemorate number 50 when the time comes?
Let’s hear it for FALDERAL!!!!”

I need a DRUM ROLL PLEASE for this auspicious occasion. It’s true, I have caught number 50 and in fine form I might add!
Not only will it be documented here for posterity, but Mom even got it on video!
I know it isn’t polite to brag, but this IS turtle 50 and I AM 12, so please allow “moi” a tad of latitude.
This morning was a rather normal, hot sultry day. Dad and I went for our early morning constitutional when I began to alert. Knowing that my behavior was more “turtle alert” rather than “feral cat/ squirrel alert”, Dad brought me into the house to get Mom and the camera. After all, everyone has been on pins and needles waiting me to strike on number 50, but I’ve been drawing blank since Memorial Day!
I kid you not! I haven’t caught even one iota of the essence of tortoise in all that time. But today was different. Mom got her camera, set it to video and we headed out. There was a slight breeze and I caught it, not the breeze- the odor of tortoise!

I pranced, I trotted, I pulled , I caught him and then something that has never happened before happened!

I slung my head to the left and #50 flew out of my mouth and right at my mom!

Of course she immediately took him inside to be indelibly marked as number 50, complete with a little touch of the RED, WHITE and BLUE and a big old gaudy bow to begin our FALDERAL celebration.

We posed for pics, partied, I got lots of treats and then it happened- I was told it was time for #50 to be released. I stomped my feet a bit, but then I just pranced around. After all, today was a momentous occasion!
Number 50 has now gone into the record books and I am, most unabashedly, the Turtle King of Walker House!